Essay Plan

Question: How important is style to graphics for successful advertising, particularly on social media platforms?

1. Look up the most current popular websites online - First source 
2. Look up popular methods of advertising online (Must has some link / evidence to social media) - Second source 
3. Define what I mean by 'Style and Design' and see what principles are followed in the examples of advertisement. (Layout of the ad and what the ad has) 
4. Finding reasons for style that decides how companies use ads and decided which one has the most importance. 

List of Current Popular Websites Online

• Google - is an popular American search engine and a multinational technology company specialising in Internet-related services and products that include online advertising technologies, search, cloud computing, software, and hardware. 
• Youtube - is an American video-sharing website. The site allows users to upload, view, rate, share, add to favorites, report and comment on videos. Available content includes video clips, TV show clips, music videos, short and documentary films, audio recordings, movie trailers and other content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos.
• Facebook - (FB) is an American for-profit corporation and online social media and social networking service. Facebook may be accessed by a large range of desktops, laptops, tablet computers, and smartphones over the Internet and mobile networks. After registering to use the site, users can create a user profile indicating their name, occupation, schools attended and so on. Users can add other users as "friends", exchange messages, post status updates and digital photos, share digital videos and links, use various software applications ("apps"), and receive notifications when others update their profiles or make posts. Facebook makes most of its revenue from advertisements which appear onscreen.
• Baidu -  is a Chinese web services company headquartered at the Baidu Campus in Beijing's Haidian District. It is one of the largest Internet companies in the world. Baidu offers many services, including a Chinese search engine for websites, audio files and images. Baidu offers 57 search and community services including Baidu Baike (an online, collaboratively built encyclopaedia) and a searchable, keyword-based discussion forum. Baidu Baike is similar to Wikipedia as an online encyclopedia; however, unlike Wikipedia, only registered users can edit the articles due to Chinese laws.
• Amazon.com - often simply Amazon, is an American electronic commerce and cloud computing company, it is the largest Internet-based retailer in the world by total sales and market capitalisation. Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, later diversifying to sell DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, video downloads/streaming, MP3 downloads/streaming, audiobook downloads/streaming, software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, and jewelry. The company also produces consumer electronics—notably, Amazon Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, and Fire TV.
• Snapchat - is an image messaging and multimedia mobile application. Snapchat evolved into a mix of private messaging and public content, including brand networks, publications, and live events such as sports and music. Now Snapchat has more to offer to it's users this includes: events, media brands, and celebrity content, having a favourable opinion of those areas.

Popular Methods of Advertising Online

1. Websites and Blogs - If a company or user want to make the best of online advertising then they would need to have a website or blog. Most online advertising is geared to direct people to their website (a central hub). A large percentage of internet users use the internet as their preferred choice to find information about goods and services. The website or blog that they own is a permanent shop window that is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

2. Social Media Websites - Social Media websites such as Facebook and YouTube are constantly seeking to increase their advertising revenues. Both provide full details of their advertising possibilities on their websites.

Facebook allows the user to select their audience by location, age and interests and to test out simple image and text based ads. It suggests that companies advertising on Facebook can:

• Advertise their own web page
• Create demand for their products by creating relevant adverts
• Publicise an event such as a product launch or anniversary.

Payment is either made by “pay per click” or by “impression” (visitors see the ad whether they click it or not).

YouTube offers a host of resources such as “how to” Guides and advertisers playbooks that will show the users exactly how to set up and run your first successful marketing campaign with it. 

Twitter also recently announced that it allows users to place self serve ads.

3. Banners and Display Advertising - Display Banners, or Banner ads, were the first major method used for online advertising. By 2009, they had dropped to less than 23% of online advertising spend as pay per click or keyword advertising became the predominant force.

Display banners still have merit and are good for special offers or for reinforcing a brand. Banner ads are small adverts that normally come in various rectangle forms. They appear on websites and serve as a link directly to the advertiser’s website: when you click on a banner your browser instantly redirects you to that site.

4. Pay Per click (PPC) or Keyword Advertising - Search engines and many websites (including social networks sites such as Facebook and YouTube), carry small adverts with embedded URL’s. When someone clicks on these adverts, the company that put them there is charged. This is considered by many to be the best online advertising method by far and has been growing at a remarkable rate. Unlike traditional advertising pay per click is user activated. Users like it, because it costs them nothing and they only use it if there is something that attracts them.

The advantage of pay per click for advertisers is that they only pay for the actual click through to their site. With other methods of advertising, both offline and online, the user have no particular idea of how much it will cost the user to attract each visitor. A user that clicks through into your site is likely to be interested in what you have to say, because these users are actively looking for information or researching what you have to say, your product service or offering.

The largest Pay per Click advertiser by a long way is Google and they have a large library of information available to walk small business owners through the process of starting a successful PPC campaign.

5. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - With the huge increase of companies operating online and selling on the internet there has been a dramatic increase in the competition between companies to get visitors to their websites. When carrying out research most people will only look at the first page of search results and quite often only the first two or three.

Making sure that the users site gets high up in the search results is important to the success of your website. There are ways to improve your search engine rankings, and search engine optimisation is the method of doing this.

The best online advertising methods can and will only be the best if you in fact have a sound, well thought out plan for the user advertising campaign; whether that is SEO or social media. 

'Style and Design'

• My definition of 'Style & Design' - A distinctive creation of a conventional appearance that of an object which communicates a principle. 

Reason of why Companies uses ads than think about the Style

• The purpose of marketing is to engage a target audience in a two-way system of interaction. Research is used to study what a marketplace needs or wants from certain types of solutions. Companies that effectively engage their audiences and identify their preferences are more equipped to develop or offer products and services that are marketable. It is also easier to promote the right benefits when the business has keen insight into the value customers want or expect.
• A primary distinction between advertising and other forms of promotion, such as public relations, is that advertising messages are paid for. While companies value free publicity, they also want to present promotional marketing campaigns that are designed, strategic and well-executed. Advertising allows a new company to create awareness. It also allows companies to promote new products to appeal to current or new target markets. With advertising, companies have the ability to communicate through various media, such as TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, billboards, mobile devices and social media.
• Another benefit of advertising is that it can help a company establish its identity and increase its brand awareness. Companies want their products to be the first thing a consumer thinks of when a need arises. Consistent advertising helps do this by ensuring that the company's name stays in front of potential customers, even when they may not be ready to buy at that point.
• Over time, advertising can help increase a company's sales and ultimately increase its earnings year over year. This can also help attract new investors or partners, especially if a company has opportunity for expansion. Companies generally have control over their advertising and can change the message in ads to best suit their needs at a specific time.
• However, results of advertising are not always immediate, especially if the main focus is branding or name recognition. An immediate increase in sales can happen if there is a promotion or discount, but keeping these customers coming back is something that will need to be focused on going forward.
• The right brand style is more important than creativity and advertising. According to figures - Consumers respond accordingly: their contact with an ad lasts only 1.7 seconds (general magazine), for a mailing they take a mere 2 seconds for the first relevance check, and for a banner only 1 second. 
• That means that for a brand communication, every second counts. To be notice d in such a short amount of time, brand style is vitally important, as it assures, instant "association & differentiation" and shows the character of the brand. Over the years, we have closely examined the issue of brand style in our consulting practice and in studies. Today we know: 
• Style beats advertising 
• Brand style increases effectiveness of advertising 
• Consistency is more exciting 
• Style creates perception 
• The number of style element is not relevant. 
• Based on this experience, we have formulated three rules: Brand style must be unambiguous, Brand style must be self-similar and Brand style must be pervasive.